Lunar Roundup: Including You

Welcome to this week’s Lunar Roundup! A power rankings-style look at who & what’s been “Awesome!” over the past seven days in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

This week has been epic, as you can now read every detail of Omega Envoy's mission(s); drive Part Time Scientists' rover in an online simulation; or be an editor/producer on Synergy Moon's new documentary! Plus, a documentary-length feature from Omega Envoy, balloon and rocket tests from SpaceMETA, and an in-depth interview from Penn State Lunar Lion.

All those (and more) as part of your moon-race highlights for March 26th-April 1st!:

This amazing PDF includes every single detail about their mission. Everything. It’s for customers (and now, the public) to know their exact capabilities and plans.

It includes a ton of new information about their Google Lunar X PRIZE mission, as well as for their future missions beyond it.

Some of the plans revealed include:

A launch in the 2nd quarter of 2015

Landing at the Apollo 12 site in the Ocean of Storms

The rover taking a 12-day journey across the lunar surface

Use of a Falcon 9 rocket

Additional missions for the 3rd quarters of 2017 and 2019, that will be customer-driven

...And, really, that's just scratching the surface!

Seriously, all you could ever want to know is presented for you in readable form there; everything from the cost of having a payload, right on down to the strength of the rover's internet signal. All kinds of fun information on what you can do on---and from---the Moon, so check it out!

And as if that weren't enough...Omega Envoy also posted a documentary-length feature on their entire team! This is your time to get to know this team really, really well:

If you've ever wanted to drive a rover around on a (simulated) Moon, here's your chance! You click the directional arrows to nudge 'Asimov Jr.' in one direction or another. It's a pretty beautiful landscape! And someday, we'll have the HD video of the real thing.

They're calling for video, poem, and art entries (as well as donations)---with the perks for the IndieGoGo-like effort being pretty cool! Everything from your name on a lunar map to being an editor or producer on the film.

It's a pretty impressive project!

Synergy Moon image of a planetarium show.

3) Ballooning!

Brazilian team SpaceMETA have announced that they are going to be conducting some high-altitude balloon and balloon/rocket hybrid experiments!

"SpaceMETA [will] start to conduct a series of a experimental stratospheric launchs to test some of the Space modules like image capture, transmission, navigation, estabilization, sensors and some more specific ones."

Check out their twin blog posts (one, two) for more info on their plans!

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Today is a #BlueMoon! Which, is the second full moon to occur in any one calendar month.

(Or, more specifically, the third full moon in a season that has four---summer/winter in this case, depending on your hemisphere!)

You see, there's usually just 12 full moons in a year (one per month), and three in a season, but occasionally we get a cool, rare bonus full moon (because a 'lunation', at 29.53 days, is actually a touch shorter than a typical calendar month). So, enjoy the extra full moon today!